How I found out about the US attack on Iran
and how I processed it
Hiii, I'm finally feeling better from having COVID. I celebrated Juneteenth by seeing one of the funniest people I know perform. Today I’m sharing my feelings on the US attack on Iran. Onto the news…
News that made me feel comfortable sharing all my thoughts
The headline read Trump says the US has completed air strikes on Iran. Not Trump just sent bombs that could have killed Iranians. Thankfully no one was killed in the strike. If the writer who wrote this heartless headline wanted to use fancier words with better syntax to highlight their prestigious academic upbringing devoid of all sense of humanity or morality because Western media has taught them neutrality is when you pretend like there are no humans on the receiving end of that bomb unless that person falls into the made-up category of this thing called whiteness, it would still sound terrible.
Whiteness is when the fancy pen in your purse matters more than the life of a full human who falls outside the definition of the class of humanity which has been created to justify murdering people for fancy pens. I mean you can’t write without your fancy pen but there is a cost to everything, right? Good thing it doesn’t cost you anything other than moments of discomfort at brunch with friends when the people who you are murdering for your pens show you the source of your fancy pens. You scream at them and tell them to shut up.
Sometimes you tell them to shut up loudly because you don’t care if the people you kill for the pens know you hate them. You think they deserve to die because their existence is beneath yours and their purpose for living is absolutely so you can have fancy pens. If they don’t want to give you fancy pens and be happy about it, then they might as well be omitted from the headline about the missile that will kill them. Telling them to shut up loudly looks like you waking up in the morning sharing images of their death and saying things like this pen matters more than their lives or if only they would just stick to making pens, then none of this would happen.
Sometimes you tell them to shut up quietly. You feel badly because you really like your pen and aren’t willing to give it up but it makes you feel uncomfortable because you want to be a good person. Being a good person means you should feel badly about holding a bloody pen. But can the blood please stop dripping onto your hand while you try to write a check to some politician who has promised you he will make sure the blood on your pen doesn’t drip on your manicured fingers. Yes, there’ll be blood, but at least it won’t get in the way of you writing your daily schedule.
The message about the bombs that were hitting no one was sent by a friend while I was reading a book that I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone I’m reading. Are there books that you are ashamed to read and so you pretend that you are not interested in the author even if the author is a popular writer. The person who ringed me up as I bought the book laughed when I tried to smuggle the embarrassing book underneath a book that I was proud for people to know I was reading, (Ruth Gilmore, Abolition Geography). I deleted that sentence once but rewrote it because I didn’t want you to think I’m being pretentious. But to be honest I’m not being pretentious. Sometimes I think I need to read all the books about liberation until my brain is fully decolonized and there are no bits of white supremacy floating inside my brain telling me that enjoying myself has no value because it takes time away from being a good person who only does things to free us.
I want to be free. I want to be free so badly. I want to be as free as I felt when I would roam around the mango groves on our people’s land, then tended to by my grandfather. He loved growing fruits. I would walk around eating as much mango as I could and would have digestive issues which I will not reveal because honestly, I don’t like talking about poop.
So yes, I’m reading this book that I’m embarrassed to tell you about it. Maybe I will tell you about it if everyone tells me which books they are reading or read or plan on reading that they are deeply embarrassed to tell anyone about.
As I am writing this it feels insensitive to talk about feeling embarrassed about reading a book when people are currently being murdered because of somethings I bought or some job I did. My name is on every missile and it burns. But sometimes my insides can burn while I’m thinking about something inconsequential. The insides burning is constant. Sometimes it burns so acutely I can’t write or create and I just sit looking at the ceiling imagining myself getting engulfed by flames as I fight against a system that will burn us all if we don’t stop it.
I’ve been watching a show that my friend recommended while I was quarantining and I love the prison rebellion scene. We throw people away and we pretend that a system that throws people away can ever have morality. No one is disposable but the system will call you disposable until people start believing you are disposable. They will not only ignore your disposal but will demand for it, indulged in it. They will love you being in prison more than they will love being free. What would happen if we broke out of the prison and broke other people out of prison and then broke each other out of prison because we realized that no one is out of prison until all of us are out of prison.
These words are the thoughts of Martin Sostre; maybe the words are also really similar so please read Martin Sostre to understand one of the people who has put new words in my head. Hopefully Martin Sostre’s words replace the words that keep whispering, you don’t have value because you don’t have a jog. That was a slip. I meant to say job but I guess I said jog because deep inside I feel like not being able to run is a loss and failure. A loss because I feel valuable when I run. I feel like a failure when I can’t run because I’m missing out on something that I deeply enjoy. When I can’t run, I am powerless in doing the thing that brings me joy. I feel like not being able to run makes me feel less valuable because I have lost the ability to bring myself joy.
I want to be able to make myself happy so badly. It’s so painful to live in a world that encumbers all your freedom so you can’t make yourself happy. If you can’t make yourself happy it means you can’t be happy. You also can’t be happy until you are living in a world where everyone’s life is filled with freedom and joy because you really just really love seeing happy people. Making other people happy makes you happy but you know people can’t be really happy until they are free. Which is why you like to make people laugh.
I just figured out the reason I am a comedian is the same reason why I want everyone to be free. That’s why I can’t quit. Who knew so much was buried under feeling like I have don’t have value because I don’t have a job.
I want so badly to be so strong that my sole purpose becomes fighting for liberation. I want to embody liberation. I want to do all the things that liberate me and other people all the time. I don’t want to serve the prison industrial complex, I don’t want to serve our masters. I want to stop being a commodity for death. I want to be fucking free. Like so profoundly. I just don’t know what freedom is because as I said I need more of the little specks floating inside of me to be transformed into seeds for liberation instead of water for oppression. I’m not saying I need to be perfect to understand what freedom is.
I just know my understanding of what freedom truly is, is not as intense as my desire for freedom because there are certain things which I know I should give up but I’m holding to. I’m holding on to these things because my brain still believes they’ll free me when in reality they are keeping me in chains. I don’t know how to unlock these chains yet but I hope doing, listening, and reading will help me unlock these chains. I hope that the more I carry out acts of liberation as everyone I have read who I trust has told me, I’ll be able to let the flames of liberation engulf me.
So, I stopped reading the book and texted my friend.
This is so stupid and I’m so over it.
She responded but I won’t repeat her words because I didn’t ask her for permission to do so and I’m too tired to do that now. Honestly, I think it’s kind of fun that it’s a mystery to you. I responded with a joke because I’m a comedian who hides their pain with sarcastic humor. Of course, you already know that about me. I said, as long as Iran fires its missiles towards wherever I am…I’m cool with it lmao. I put the lmao there because I didn’t think it was a very good joke…dark…but maybe not good. It’s one of those jokes where I wonder if I said that to be funny or I actually mean it but I know it’s absurd enough for people to think it’s a joke.
A lot of times I say what I mean and tell people it’s a joke if the joke doesn’t land, if it does then I let it go. Sometimes I make a joke which is an actual joke which makes people question whether what I am saying is a joke or I actually think that. I never really know which one I’m doing sometimes. Sometimes I have conversations with people where I don’t know if I’m joking or I’m just saying a bunch of things that I believe but people find so absurd they laugh. Or some people laugh because they think or know I actually mean what I’m saying.
That’s it for the news but don’t go yet
Last week on TikTok I shared how I learned about the Mau Mau fighters. Watch it!
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